


With Scarves of Red Tied 'Round Their Throats

by Roehrborn



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Regret, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 21:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10580205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roehrborn/pseuds/Roehrborn
Summary: They’re out to get him, these ghostly apparitions.  They don’t want him to succeed.  He’s certain of that now.  Whatever temporary balm the dead penguin’s words had given him, it was all a misdirection.Took you long enough,Not-Oswald says, mischievous grin playing at his lips.If I didn’t know better, I’d call you a sentimentalist, Ed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It’s weird PWP, guys. I don’t even know what kind of mood I’m in.
> 
> This can be read as a continuation of [Thoughts of You Consume](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10189217), or as a standalone. Either way, I hope you enjoy!  
> ~R
> 
> P.S. Title from “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes

The shades in his mind won’t leave him alone.

They stand silent and solemn, their translucent forms lit by the moon in misty waves. In the night they hover like ghosts, just at the corner of his vision. They may as well be ghosts. For what are ghosts, but the dead come back to haunt the living for their transgressions?

Oswald Cobblepot; Kristen Kringle; the Other Edward. They dance across the walls of his motel room like shadow puppets. Edward stops looking at them, keeps his eyes down and on his blueprints. He has a plan. He will wreak terror across Gotham, tear apart the city which has given him nothing but pain and regret. It has taken everything he holds dear, one by one, plucked from his hands as easily as the wind carries away the seeds of a dandelion.

One particular night, the night of the full moon, though Edward does not put stock in such superstitions, his nightly visitors are absent. He rises to his feet from the desk and walks to the window, unsure of his reasons even as he opens the glass.

The wind carries to him the smell of the docks, wet and salty. Like tears, too, Edward considers. His glasses lens fog quickly, the humid night clinging to his skin and raising gooseflesh on his bare arms.

The moon (the bright orange full harvest moon) glares down at him, wavery, distorted by the low cloud cover. Edward blinks.

The dirty and cracked street below is no longer empty. Instead, two figures look up at him.

He recognizes one by face and the other only by association. A man and a woman, in their fifties or sixties, holding hands. Both of their faces are upturned, painted orange-yellow in the light of the weird moon. The looks on their faces-- the sorrow sends a shudder running through Edward’s entire body.

The woman holds a hand up to him, pleading, in a disturbing imitation of the mayor’s last reach for Edward. Edward can see, even through the mist on his glasses, that her eyes are glimmering with tears. He tracks the movement of her mouth. “My dear little Cobblepot,” she pleads silently. “My good, sweet boy.” Edward’s eyes drift to his left.

The specter of the penguin is back.

He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Edward, close enough to touch. But if he reaches out, Edward’s hand will slip through the form, as intangible as the fog outside.

 _Did you really leave my father’s body in a dumpster?_ The false mayor asks.

Edward frowns. “Yes.”

_I would have forgiven you that._

Edward looks back down onto the street. The figures are gone. He is alone with the mayor; or, that is, the only thing left of the mayor.

 _You are truly alone now,_ Not-Oswald says. He turns away from Edward and walks back toward the bed, which dominates the room. Edward watches as the hallucination strokes his fingers across the cheap comforter. The bed is unmade, blankets strewn across the top; Edward has no one to impress. _The three stooges are off plotting to kill you. And you’ve locked yourself up in here, with your plans and your thoughts. And me._

“Not just you,” Edward says, the inaccuracy irritating enough to move him to speak. “The others…”

 _We’re all you, Ed. Don’t kid yourself. Not even ghosts can be motivated to waste time on_ you. _The only things keeping you company are your own delusions._

“Then who was she?” Edward snaps. “I’ve never seen your mother before, Oswald. How would I have known what she looks like?”

The false mayor turns back to look Edward in the eye. _Edward,_ the image of Oswald says laughingly, _you know as well as I that you could’ve seen a picture of her, remembered subconsciously, and are now projecting that image. Or, equally plausibly, she could have been entirely invented, drawn from my descriptions of her whilst alive. You’re hysterical; you don’t believe in the supernatural._

Edward flinches, startled to realize he had in fact been arguing on the side of the supernatural. Absurd, he thinks. He doesn’t believe in ghosts.

 _We are all only the projections of your own mind, Ed._ Not-Oswald smirks pityingly at him. _And it does seem to have it out for you. Your dead first love, your best friend who betrayed you, and your alter ego, who is … much better at getting things done than you are._

His Other Self, chittering in his ear: _you’ve been nothing more than a child clinging to my coattails this whole time. Whatever would you do if I left you? ___

“What do you mean, if you leave me? You are me.”

 _I’m the predator inside you. We are not the same,_ Dark Edward says, stepping out of Edward, cleaved like the helpless infant before Solomon, and hadn’t Edward sworn off Biblical allusions long ago?

 _How’s this for a Biblical allusion? It wasn’t an apple, it was a pomegranate; each sweet seed eaten brings with it more ungodly knowledge of good and evil and carries you one step further from heaven. Each life taken has drawn you along this path, and the last one was the_ killer _bite,_ Not-Ed says.

“I don’t believe in that anymore,” Edward says flatly, staving off the cold dread which had always filled him as he sat upon the old creaky wooden pews, head bent in penitence. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

 _You’re being deliberately obtuse,_ the specter of Oswald snarls. _This is a metaphor. You, me, Kristen, your alter ego. This is your own metaphor, and you’re dragging_ my _stinking corpse out to play for the sole purpose of understanding your own moronic desires._

“My _desires_?” Edward snaps back. “I had a _desire_ to live out a happy life with Isabella. You _took_ that from me, Oswald. You _betrayed_ me!”

Suddenly Oswald’s ghost is before him, and he can’t _touch his hallucinations they can’t touch him_ but Oswald’s hand is _gripping his chin and holding firm_. Horror wells up in Edward, his throat seizing, and he chokes on his own spit. “What are you?” he forces out between suddenly-numb lips.

“Whatever you want me to be,” Oswald says, and his voice seems to echo in the empty motel room. The room seems larger now, more cavernous, the ceiling rising up and walls expanding around him.

 _I don’t understand,_ Edward says numbly.

“He doesn’t understand,” Dark Edward says to Oswald. He’s grinning a shark grin, teeth so very white, whiter than the motel room walls. The motel room walls are growing darker, wood-colored, wood-stained. “The poor fool doesn’t understand.”

“How much do you hate yourself, Ed, for all the things you’ve done?” Oswald asks him. “You loved Kristen, and you killed Kristen. You loved me, and you murdered me.”

 _I didn’t love you,_ Edward insists. _I didn’t ever love you, Oswald._

“Of course you do. Although, at the docks, I only meant as a best friend,” Oswald says, and his lip curls in derision. “You do know what that is, right? Friendship? Though I suppose you turned on Jim Gordon as well.

“‘Remember that,’” Oswald says mockingly. “‘Remember that’. How could I forget, Ed? But you seemed to. And yet, despite everything, it’s true, isn’t it? I still _am_ your best friend.”

“But you’re dead!” the Mirror Ed says, voice mockingly scandalized. “Eddie’s best friend is a dead man! That’s just pathetic.”

Oswald’s grip loosens, but Edward is still frozen in shock. His motel room is looking very strange now, not at all like it did earlier. Green light peers in through the window, which is in the wrong place entirely. The floor is hardwood, no longer carpeted. There’s a small piano along the far wall. Oswald draws his gloved fingers down Edward’s cheek, stroking him as one would a pet. “The only true friend he’s ever had. Who accepted him just as he was.”

“Oh, but surely _Isabella_ ,” the fake Ed says, “surely _she_ was his friend? They had everything in common: riddles, physical attraction, and … oh, I guess that about sums it up.” His doppelganger leans forward, and Edward can feel the ghostly breath stir the ungroomed stubble on his chin. “Is that all you really are, Ed? Just riddles and a pathetic desire for reciprocated attention?”

Edward is surprised to realize he is standing in his old apartment. Oswald pushes him, short and abrupt, and Edward topples backward into his bed. The blanket rolls up and covers him, his week-old trousers and stained undershirt turning to soft and warm flannel.

Oswald climbs up onto the bed on all fours, and Edward’s eyes open wide. “Of course you love me. You always have.” Oswald leans over Edward, pressing a kiss light as a butterfly wing onto his forehead. Edward feels a reluctant blush bloom on his cheeks, chagrin and anger and leftover tenderness crawling in his gut.

“Since the first moment you saw me. Before then, even. You had never heard of anyone like me. And you never will again.”

 _You betrayed me,_ Edward protests weakly.

“I did,” Oswald tells him, pale eyes luminescent with reflected green light. “I betrayed you. Went behind your back and killed your girlfriend. That’s who I am. That’s _what_ I am.” Oswald strokes his face again, gloveless this time. The pads of his fingers whisper on Edward’s cheek. “And you _love_ me for it.”

Edward remembers how Oswald’s face had looked as they killed Mr. Leonard together, the rapturous delight writ in his wide grin. The blood splattered on his pale skin, left to slowly dry as they rested together in the aftermath, sated of that killing urge. Oswald leans in, and Edward thinks he can still see the blood spatter on his cheeks. Oswald presses his lips to Edward’s, feather soft, the kiss chaste and sweet. Edward’s eyes fall shut.

 _We were supposed to kill together,_ he murmurs against Oswald’s lips. _We were supposed to be on the same side._

“And when you were too weak to kill, I stepped in,” Oswald breathes into Edward’s mouth, filling his lungs with insidious carbon dioxide. Edward takes it in, gulping, and suddenly Oswald’s weight is heavy on his chest. “She would have changed you, Ed. She _was_ changing you.”

 _I would have done anything for you,_ Edward pleads, desperate, uncertain of what he’s asking for.

Oswald hums against his lips. Edward opens his eyes to find Oswald’s open, staring at him. His pupils are dilated, irises a thin pale ring. The green light from the window glints off his eyes, giving them an eerie glow.

“You didn’t have anything worth giving,” Mirror Edward says. Edward jerks, feeling Oswald’s weight heavy in his lap. Dark Edward lounges on the bed beside him, chin resting in the palm of his hand. A smirk plays at his lips, brows drawn in derision. “I had the only thing the penguin wanted. You, _Eddie-boy_ , are worthless without me.”

“She was splitting you apart,” Oswald insists, bright eyes dominating Edward’s vision, “she was taking the monster inside you and tempering him with kind words and superficial adoration. To her, it was all play-acting. You and I know,” Oswald leans in, his palm resting over Edward’s heart, “it’s the truth of us.” The puffs of air from his lips are more intimate than any of his kisses. Oswald’s lips curve into a mischievous smile at Edward’s errant thought. “I am you,” Oswald reminds him, kindly, “of course I know what you’re thinking.” He brushes Edward’s hair away from his forehead. “And I know you know it’s true. She would have destroyed everything about yourself you hold dear.”

 _Oswald, I lo--_ Edward begins, voice shaky.

“Oh, don’t _bother_ , freak,” Dark Edward says, laconically. “He _knows_. We all _know_.”

Edward grips Oswald’s hips tightly, refusing to look over at his alter ego. Oswald smiles down at him, a little pityingly. “You should know by now it doesn’t work like that,” Oswald tells him, “After all, you’re not the one for me, are you? The man who’s my perfect match is right beside you.” Oswald pats his cheek gently, and--

\--he’s laying on his side, and Oswald is perched in the Other Edward’s lap. Neither of them are looking at him; they’re busy staring into each other’s eyes. Oswald strokes his fingers against Not-Ed’s chin, which is clean-shaven and smooth. “Oh, dearest,” Oswald sighs, and leans down to press his lips firmly against Not-Ed’s.

Other Ed wraps his arms around Oswald’s shoulders, dragging him down until their chests are pressed flush together. Edward watches, unease stirring in his gut. He can’t bear to look away, but the sight is painful and striking in a way he recognizes -- somehow, he is always the one excluded. Even when it’s his own, better self in his place.

Oswald gives a gentle sigh, content to ignore him, and grasps Not Ed’s face in his hands. Their lips draw apart, and Oswald whispers: “I love you, Ed.” But he’s saying it to the Other Ed and that’s all _wrong_. Edward’s hands curl into fists, his gut roiling in anger. He tries to reach out, but his limbs are paralyzed. Oswald ignores him, shifting on top of Edward’s doppelganger in a distinctly lurid movement. “I want to make love to you,” Oswald murmurs, lips brushing against Not-Ed’s.

“Yes,” Not-Ed agrees, voice confident and sure. “ _Yes_ , Oswald.”

Edward is hopelessly enraptured as he watches them strip: two bodies of pale skin and livid scars. Edward’s eyes slide away from his doppelganger’s body, self-conscious of the marks on his skin, but finds himself tracing the lines of the twisted and jagged wounds crawling over Oswald’s skin. He’s survived so _much_.

(Not everything.)

And then, when they’re naked, Oswald leans in for another kiss, a quiet noise of contentment escaping him. “You are so beautiful,” Oswald murmurs, and Dark Ed’s lips curve into a contented smirk at the praise.

“Oswald, you are the greatest man I know,” Mirror Ed says with firm conviction, resting his palm against Oswald’s cheek.

Oswald blushes at that. They stare into each other’s eyes, tenderness tempering their looks, and Edward bites his lip against the mournful sound which wells up inside him. He thinks Oswald’s eyes flicker to him, ever observant; but he says nothing, only sliding back on the fake Edward’s lap and bringing his hand to his mouth.

Edward is struck with longing as Oswald opens his mouth and reveals the pink wet shape of his tongue, as he licks his index and middle fingers, sliding them between his lips and _sucking_ on them obscenely, his cheeks hollowed out. This time the noise escapes him: a breathy moan is carried from his lungs. _Oswald…_ he pleads. His cock, hot, heavy, straining, twitches as Oswald’s cold eyes slide over to him. They pierce him. Icy trails map the scope of his body: the flush in his cheeks, the dilated pupils, the increased heart rate, the erection burning between his thighs. Oswald looks back to his false Ed, finding the real one wanting.

The fingers slide from his lips, wet and obscene, and he smiles triumphantly down at the doppelganger. “Spread your legs for me,” Oswald requests, rising up on his knees to ease Not-Ed’s movement.

Not-Ed spreads his legs immediately, hands scoring across the bedspreads. “Yes, Oswald,” he demands, digging his fingers into the mattress. “Fuck me.”

“Oh, Ed,” Oswald says laughingly. “So crude.” He leans down, his lips just brushing that false doppelganger’s, and Edward can’t see because the _wrong_ him’s leg is in the way, but Oswald moves his hand between the other’s legs.

Dark Ed gasps, back arching, and as Real Ed watches, Oswald slips his tongue between his lips, tasting the half-formed words on his tongue. Fake Ed’s hand grips Oswald at the nape of his neck, strongly enough that Edward can see his knuckles whiten.

“And forceful,” Oswald mumbles into his mouth. Real Edward’s cock gives an unwarranted jump at that, and he clenches his hands into fists. He wants to touch himself. Oh _god_ but he wants to touch himself. Oswald’s lip curves, as if he heard that thought. “I did,” Oswald says conspiratorially into Not-Ed’s mouth. “You keep forgetting I’m you.” Oswald moves his arm, and Edward watches with bitter jealousy as Other-Ed _writhes_. “Go ahead, touch yourself.” 

Edward resists. Edward resists up until the moment Oswald asks “Ready?” and Dark Edward says, fervently “Yes,” and Oswald draws away briefly, slicking his cock with spit, before leaning back over the _usurper_ and entering him with one long slow, thrust.

Then Edward _has_ to touch himself, has to wrap both hands around his own erection and pull, hands too dry and not at all what _Oswald’s_ would feel like.

And when Oswald thrusts, the mattress under Edward shakes, and he lets out a quiet trembling moan, caught between longing and hate, adoration and the slow-building bitter taste of regret on his tongue. He swallows against the sudden lump in his throat, watching the tendons of his twin’s hand as he clings to the back of Oswald’s neck. Oswald lets out a high-pitched gasp, almost like a whine, and a matching whimper gets caught in Edward’s throat.

Through tear-clouded eyes Edward watches the Fake Edward come, head thrown back, expression a rictus of pleasure. Oswald reaches down to grasp his erection, stroking the come from him, spilling it onto the pale skin of Not-Edward’s stomach. With envy, Edward shuts his eyes and bites the pillow underneath his head. He gives himself a few more pulls, the movement steady and deliberate as Oswald’s had been, and he desperately tries to pretend that it’s Oswald, Oswald, _Oswald_ ’s hands on him, touching him and sending him to the heights and ecstasies of pleasure and adoration.

He comes, semen spilling into his palm and slicking the way for his hand. He bites his lip until he tastes copper, and thinks about Oswald’s bright, bright eyes staring down at him with undisguised possession and happiness.

When Edward opens his eyes again, he’s laying on his back, Oswald curled up beside him. They’re wearing matching flannel pajamas, the room quiet except for the sounds of their breaths.

Edward turns to Oswald, unease stirring under his skin. He’s not sure why. _Oswald?_ he asks.

“Yes?” Oswald asks, laconic and pleasure-drunk.

_Wasn’t there… someone here?_

“Yes. Your better half.” Oswald says it as if it’s a clever joke, raising his brows in intimation. “I miss him already. Some conversational companion _you_ are.”

 _But…_ Edward asks, lost. _Why are we here? Oswald, I don’t like this._

“What’s wrong?” Oswald asks, teeth sharp. “My love, what’s wrong?”

 _This isn’t my apartment anymore,_ Edward tries to explain. _I don’t know how I got here._

“Does it matter?” Oswald leans over and brushes his hand against Edward’s face. “I’m here with you. Isn’t that the only thing that counts?”

There’s yelling. It sounds muffled, as if blocked by the apartment wall. Edward rests his palm against the bedframe, which melts underneath his fingers. _I don’t…_ he trails off, unsure.

“You stupid man,” Oswald says fondly. His fingers brush Edward’s hair out of his face. “You lovely, gorgeous, idiotic man. I’m not real. You can’t touch me.” He cups Edward’s face in his hands.

 _But you are touching me,_ Edward says, wounded.

Oswald’s teeth glint at him, turned neon green in the light from the window. “That’s because you’re dreaming.”

_I’m not asleep._

“Doesn’t mean you’re not dreaming. You should open your eyes, Edward.” He doesn’t want to. “I know it hurts. Open your eyes, Ed.”

Edward opens them.

“Get out of my house, you freak!”

Edward startles and whirls on his heel, coming face-to-face with a young woman wielding a metal softball bat. He takes a lurching step backward, bringing his hands in front of him defensively. “I’m sorry-!”

Midday sunlight filters in through the window on the far wall. The piano is gone, as is his bed, and his posters. But this is unmistakably his old apartment. “Do you know, this used to be my apartment?” he asks the woman.

“I’m going to call the cops!” she shouts at him.

“Oh, dear,” Edward says, “don’t do that.” He’s not sure what to say; lately his only conversational companions are the shades of a guilty mind. They don’t usually mind when he wanders off topic.

“Then get the fuck out!” she says. She feints a swing at him, and he takes a couple of steps back to bring him out of range of her bat.

“Right, right, sorry,” Edward says. He rushes to the door, nearly tripping over his own feet. He stumbles as he crosses over the threshold. The door slams shut behind him, reverberating in its frame.

How did he get in? He doesn’t still have the key, and the lock isn’t broken.

That’s beside the point. The point is that somehow, the specter of the mayor has lured him away from his motel and his plans. Perhaps the Mirror Ed had taken over in his absence. There’s no telling what has been done.

They’re out to get him, these ghostly apparitions. They don’t want him to succeed. He’s certain of that now. Whatever temporary balm the dead penguin’s words had given him, it was all a misdirection.

 _Took you long enough,_ Not-Oswald says, mischievous grin playing at his lips. _If I didn’t know better, I’d call you a sentimentalist, Ed._

“Leave me alone,” Edward says curtly, and strides off down the hallway.

Only to sprawl forward onto the hardwood, face-to-face with the dead mayor’s shoes. One shiny tip nudges his forehead, and the stink of shoe polish enters his nostrils. _Impossible._ Oswald bends down, bringing his face into Edward’s view.

 _Leave you alone, Edward?_ the capricious penguin spits. _You lost the right to determine when you’re alone in your head when you killed me, reducing me to this pathetic shadow. Now the only solace I have is making sure you will never forget me._

“Y-you can’t do that,” Edward insists, stuttering over his own words. His hallucinations can’t _touch_ him, and they don’t _smell_ either.

 _Unfortunately for you, Eddie,_ the mayor tells him with a Cheshire grin, _it seems I can. Do you remember when you first saw me?_

“Yes,” Edward says, word escaping involuntarily.

_Let’s take a trip down memory lane… do you remember the smell of the station? That smell of unwashed criminal and greasy fast food that never washes away? Jim in handcuffs… And then you saw me, standing there at the entrance, silhouetted by the cold white sunlight…_

Edward opens his eyes and takes an awkward step back, clutching the notebook to his chest. A hauntingly familiar figure stands to his left, blacked out by the sunlight behind him.

“I…” the man gives a funny little bow, “...am Oswald Cobblepot.”

Edward’s heart lurches.

He’s in love.


End file.
